'TOCK KONG' is a local Hokkien slang which means 'Awesome'. I welcome genuine comment/s here, for or against but will reject derogatory or racist comments right away.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

I Should Oppose, Rightly or Wrongly!

I should be among the disgruntled lot but when I dug deeper,
I did not. It was tough growing up in
the 60s and 70s with 4 other siblings. Our
parents are illiterate and birth control was never their agenda as we popped up
one or two years apart of each other. I
am the second in the family. We were not
taught values from day one as life was a struggle for us. The neighbourhood we were in was shady where
gang fights were norm. I remember I was
bullied by a teenage gangster who threw cigarette into my singlet for no rhyme
or reason. I was about ten then. That gangster still lives around the neighbourhood
but he is an old man now. I still see him
on few occasions. One can forgive but will
never forget. The flat we were living in
was one-hall type with a common corridor shared by all. Even a fart can be heard from far. There is no room for privacy, we slept in the
hall and sometimes my brothers and I slept in the kitchen. The block had since been demolished as our country
progressed.

Tried he did, my father could not maintain a regular income
to keep us going and my mom had to straddle with few part time jobs. It was a hard life. My mother’s focus then was to put food on the
table and when the going got tough, she decided to operate a gambling den in
our small flat. She is not a hard core
gambler but by allowing our place to operate as a gambling den, she could earn overriding
commissions from the gamblers. It gave decent
income by our own standard. At any one
time, there were more than 30 people squeezing in our small flat. Gambling will start at 1000 am and end at
1000 pm 24/7. They played black jack
game. The gamblers were some neighbours,
manual labourers, gangsters and even housewives, you name it. They had their lunch, their dinner and
sometimes, supper at our house and the game will never stop until very late. It went on for few years. No police raided our place, not even once. I wished they had. It was stuffy, smoky and ventilation was
poor. Door had to be closed for obvious
reasons. I hated it very much and once
tried to stop the gamblers from coming into our house but only to end up with
cane marks on most parts of my body save for the face. Sheepishly, I once swore I wanted to be a
policeman to nab all the gamblers but it was a pipe dream. As expected, our grades were badly affected. There was no proper place to study at all. Mixing with bad company was easy but it was the
last thing in my mind and so too for my siblings. The gambling activity ended altogether until I
went NS. By then, my mom realised too late that I
am very anti-gambling. Life got a little better from there on. However, I find comfort that none of my
sibling including me ended up as compulsive gamblers despite the environment we
were in.

This was Singapore in the 60s & 70s. Had we not progressed and punched above the
line in the last few decades, this little red dot will still remain a shady
place where corruption is rampant, standard of living is low, education
standard is low and worse still, suppressed under “bad governance”. The progress of our small nation is the
marvel of many countries and it does not happen overnight. Rightly or wrongly, I should oppose the
ruling government for the sorry stage I was in.
I did not have the privilege to live in a safe and comfortable environment
then. My parents were poor and we were
deprived of many things we could have yearned for. Common sense prevailed; had the government of
the day not recognised that we must forge ahead despite the many uncertainties ahead,
do we have a modern Singapore now? They
had the good foresight, the perseverance and painstakingly guided the country
to that of a developed nation. No, I am
not an “ungrateful piece of shit” who just enjoys opposing for the sake of
opposing. This is the government I know,
from LKY to GCT to present LHL. It is
easy to oppose but I can’t find major faults to oppose. Our young nation is still very much a
work-in-progress which is totally dependent on the outside for its survival. This is a fast moving world and if we think
we have arrived, it will be the day we see us going down the trend. I can’t thank our government enough for
giving us such a safe and nice environment to live in. March on, Singapore...march on PAP!

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About Me

I have finally touched 56 this year. Admittedly, I have to confess physical fitness and stamina has somewhat slowed.
I am still actively organising outdoor stuff and I reckon it will be so for the longest time. Seeing happy faces after each successful event makes me happy too.
As to blogging, it has been quite irregular for me in recent years. No excuses for me, just plain lazy.
At 56, there is no slowing down for me but on the contrary, I will continue to explore any opportunity that comes knocking.